Everything you need to know about running and life and any other random crap I find bouncing through my mind like a ping pong ball. And always be sure your shoes are happy.

Archive for the month “April, 2013”

The pork chops turned out pretty well. Maybe a little dry but after four hours of yard work I was too hungry to know for sure. One reason I think the pork chops were OK is the next day for lunch I finished the leftovers straight out of the casserole dish without taking a pause. The dog looked worried and hid under the table. I don’t know what he’s being so picky about, does he hear himself when he eats?

I think soon the Food Network will be calling me to host a show. It’s been a long time since my last brush with fame and no fortune as the Poster Child and National Spokesperson for the National Butt Falling-off Ass. Now that I’m healed they’ve tossed me out on the street like a used newspaper from the bottom of the litter box. I’m not bitter, I’m far to large-hearted for that, and I fully deny remarking that all their asses had obviously fallen off and landed on their shoulders. I’m not one to hold a grudge, and I’m not watching stupid AMC only because they happen to have nothing good on. At all, ever.

What should the focus of my cooking show be? Hmmm. “Spices: From Salt to Pepper?” “Conundrum: Cream of Mushroom or Cream of Chicken?” “Pass on the Pasta OR: How I learned to cook a Spaghetti Squash?”

The best thing about it all, though, is I’ve overcome my irrational fear of returning to Kroger. I’ve learned that Olivia Newton John was soon to open a show in Las Vegas but has postponed it due to the sad fact that her sister has brain cancer, and she intends to spend her time helping her sister. In view of this very awesome and selfless act by a very classy lady, I’ve decided I can no longer remain small-minded about the guy playing B17 even though I do still have the damn song stuck in my head, doing yard work, pulling weeds, muttering lyrics.

Secondly I’m no longer afraid of finding a bath in the Kroger un-bathroom, AKA the Ladies’ Room. It appears there are far worse things you can find in a bathroom:

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SALINA, KS by the Associated Press April 23, 2013 — A central Kansas woman likely won’t remember her first circus for the clowns or performances — it’ll be the tiger in the bathroom.

The big cat had escaped briefly after its turn in the ring Saturday at the Isis Shrine Circus in Salina. Staff members blocked off the concourses at the Bicentennial Center as the tiger wandered into the bathroom, where one of the doors was blockaded.

About that time, Salina resident Jenna Krehbiel decided she needed to use the restroom. When she walked in the door that hadn’t been blocked off, she found a tiger standing about 2 feet away, The Salina Journal reported.

“You don’t expect to go in a bathroom door, have it shut behind you and see a tiger walking toward you,”Krehbiel said. (right??)

Chris Bird, manager at the Bicentennial Center, said the bathroom was only 25 feet long.

“Once she saw the tiger, I’m sure she knew to go the other way,” Bird said. “Overall, it was a scary, surreal moment. I am glad no one was hurt or injured.”

The tiger was captured within minutes and returned to its enclosure.

Krehbiel, a social worker, said she didn’t scream or run because she is trained to stay calm. “Looking back, it was a scary ordeal,” she said. “At the time, I was thinking I just needed to get out.” (how many times does a social worker run into tigers in the bathroom?? Note to self: do not pursue social work.)

Krehbiel said her 3-year-old daughter had a different reaction. “My daughter wanted to know if it had washed its hands,” Krehbiel said. “That was her only concern. I think that shows the thoughts of children and that they wouldn’t have known there was danger.”

As you two might already know, I have a couple of Monday issues happening here.

First, I’m supposed to be having an “off” day. Obviously most of my days are “off” so I expect you’re both wondering what’s so unusual about that. Cynics, both of you, I’m supposed to be taking the day off from working out. So of course I slept wonderfully and didn’t get up until 7am, waking refreshed and enthused about maybe swimming (right, OK, not really enthused, but you know…sorta not hating the idea. That’s a lot like being enthused.)

I have to admit I no longer look at swimming like it was my second pregnancy and this time I knew what natural childbirth felt like and knew I was going to have to go through it all again anyway. See? That’s positive, right?

I remember being pregnant with the twins, sitting in a chair, unable to see my toes. Hubs asked me about the Lamaze classes, wondering how learning a breathing technique was helpful. “Does it make it hurt less, then?” he asked.

In the most polite way possible I told him to go shut his buddy in the door over there and work on breathing slowly and deeply, which would be helpful in demonstrating to him both the feeling of labor and the benefit of proper breathing. He politely declined and indicated he was happy to take me at my word.

So today I’m not going swimming or running or biking (but I am going to sneak in some yard work SHHHH be vewy vewy quiet.)

Since I’m full of energy and it’s a pretty day and also I put it off for the past three days I decided to go to Kroger’s and buy food. Secondly, I decided to actually make dinner tonight. Fasten the seatbelts, it’s going to be a rough ride. I even looked up a recipe. Then I decided we don’t need no stinking recipe and I’m going to make up my own plan. Baked pork chops, rice and veggies. I’ll let you know if hubs survives. There’s really no other option because I forgot to buy the Lean Cuisines and I’m not going back to the store. I figure more than once a week in Kroger is probably a leading cause of brain leakage, and I have reason for that belief.

Part of the problem is the Muzak. Usually I can handle a little bit of the orchestral remakes of Back in Black or Somebody to Love because once those get stuck in my head, as they will undoubtedly and without fail do, I don’t feel like I need to thread dental floss through my ears and clean out my head.

Oddly, I kept feeling I should not go to Kroger this morning. Not that I didn’t want to, I was actually feeling rather enthused about buying food and cooking it, as opposed to buying it and letting it rot. And I kept thinking of other things to take care of instead of going to the store, but I didn’t want to go this afternoon because I want to get outside in the sunshine and rake up 10 millionbajillion leaves from the 87 trees on our lawn.

OK. FINE. It’s not really 87 trees. I don’t want to count them though, because then for the rest of my life at some point every freeking day my brain would randomly announce WE HAVE 23 TREES ON OUR LAWN and when I’m in the home and don’t recognize my own toes my brain would still randomly announce out loud to the nurse WE HAVE 23 TREES ON OUR LAWN. The nurses will all call me Tree Lady and they’ll all know which resident they’re talking about. Sometimes they’ll just shorten it to “23 needs a bed pan” and they’ll all know then, too.

Anyway, I didn’t listen to my own inner psychic and I went to Kroger. Probably, too, if I weren’t so damn well hydrated it would still have worked out OK. But, no, I’ve had like 40 ounces of water already this morning plus three coffees, so of course I had to go to the Ladies’ Room – this is the polite term for bathroom in public places – which when you think about it, they can’t call it a bathroom because it has no bath. If it did have a bath I would totally not go in there because I have no clue what I might see at that point, but – without meaning to point fingers – if that woman in front of me in the checkout was naked in a bath and I saw that at Kroger’s I would probably go blind or end up in the home tomorrow telling everyone about the freeking damn trees and drooling.

This is precisely why I will never make it as a nurse. I’ll never play piano either, but if I did, I can tell you one song I would NEVER-NEVER-EVER play: Please Mr., Pleasewhich, unfortunately, came on overhead just as I was checking out.

AND THIS IS THE SECOND TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED AT THAT STORE!! Let me repeat that as I’m sure you are both completely stunned and cannot believe what you just read: THIS IS THE SECOND TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED AT THAT STORE!

How can the odds possibly work out that I would hear that damn song twice in the same store? How random is that, anyway? Shouldn’t I have fallen into a black hole first, or hit a hole-in-one at the Masters even though I don’t golf? Wouldn’t those chances be better than hearing that song twice in the same place??? AND it happened in the check out line. If I’d just not gone to the Ladies’ Room. Dammit.

But, no. Here I sit, two hours later, and that song is running through my head like a warm murky stream on a grossly hot day. I even youtubed AC/DC and played it real loud to try getting it out that way, but they can’t seem to kick Olivia out. Probably by Wednesday or Thursday it should be gone.

Secondly, “at my age” which the doctors seem get some perverse joy out of saying, I think there should be some perks. One of the perks I think I should be able to enjoy is not have a pimple grow in the middle of my nose.

I’m concerned that hearing Olivia warble about B17 has flashed me back to my teen years and my pores felt obliged to make me feel right at home. Soon I shall don my jeans that are far too short because my legs are too long and they don’t sell jeans by the inseam yet and get some broccoli stuck in my braces so when I laugh out loud during Monday afternoon Spanish class the popular kids will laugh too.

Tuesday was the one year anniversary of my dad’s passing (I like the word “passing'”. Passages. Life is a series of them.) so I was visiting with my mom for the past week. She lives in the hills about 1-1/2 hours north/northwest of Phoenix. The town is not that small but I was reduced to 2G on my iPad, which sucked since I’m attached at the hip to the internet and have no life to speak of. I felt rather as though one of my arms had been torn off. Probably by Zombies. This was particularly irritating when area TV stations kept emailing MRTC to see if we had any runners in Boston and could I give them their personal contact info. We have 3400 members, I don’t know and I’m not giving you their personal info if I did know, but thanks for asking. That, however, took 12 minutes to type every time, apparently you can’t type too fast on an iPad with 2G or you crash it. Repeatedly.

Hey, at least I didn’t have to call AT&T, right?

Mom lives in a bi-level house built on the side of a steep plot of land, the backyard about 1-1/2 stories above the street. The guest room is downstairs and the window sill is level with the yard. I look upward to watch chipmunks steal sunflower seeds from the bird feeder and see the lizards amble past. It’s cool and dark and I’ve named it The Bat Cave.

Every evening we watched movies on AMC, which, as an aside, I’m kinda pissed at AMC. Mom’s AMC is having a special this month with little notes popping up throughout the film about the actors, funny anecdotes, etc. I was so excited. I was going to watch AMC the rest of the month and learn all kinds of useless pieces of info. For instance I learned, while watching Willie Wonka, that all the little Oompa Loompas liked to rent a limo every day after filming and bar hop. This was particularly funny to me, and totally not PC, because I kept having a mental image of the little dudes hopping up so they could see over the bar: HOP “Scotch” HOP “on the” HOP “rocks, please” (bar? hopping? right?) So I apologize if either of you are an Oompa Loompa and also that I’m an insensitive un-PC bitch.

But, no. No little notes on my AMC. Dammit.

Oh, well, I’ve been distracted by the talking heads on CNN anyway.

Mom is of an unstated age that allows her to pick and choose what she feels like doing and I expect she’s earned that right. Personally, however, I do think she should have felt like killing those large red ants with the big mound of ant mansion in her backyard sometime in the last few years. I particularly think she should have killed them before one of the little bass turds bit my foot. Dammit, that hurt.

I grabbed some rubbing alcohol and some cortisone cream and some anti-itch cream and sat with ice on it while we watched the Oompah Loopahs roll away the large blueberry girl (one of my favorite parts, although I’m sure it wasn’t fun for her as she apparently wore the Styrofoam ball all day long and couldn’t eat while the rest of the crew had lunch because her arms couldn’t reach her mouth. Seriously? No one could spoon a little soup in her mouth?) Then I started worrying about her. What if she needed to go to the bathroom?

Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it?

Sorry, I’m back now, I was gone for a while there ^^^ Chunk is on my desk hovering over my keyboard, trying to smack my hand every time I type. Apparently the typing is keeping her awake or something. So sorry, Princess, your constant jumping on me is the whole reason we’re all awake at 4am. Think about that tomorrow. Anyway, now she is distracted as the sun is coming up and she can see the birds outside so she’s at the window chirping, tail twitching, and no longer trying to kill the dreaded Fingers of Typing. That’s some tail, I tell you. I had to move my coffee cup.

After Charlie gave Mr. Wonka the Everlasting Gobstopper back (which, BTW, they do make Everlasting Gobstoppers in real life but they actually only last 16 minutes, thank you, AMC) and proved he was a great guy and got to own the whole candy factory I retired to the Bat Cave to read a while before bed. Of course then that damn ant bite started itching like fire. I didn’t want to go back upstairs to get all the anti-itch stuff because every step you take in that 40-year old house makes the cups rattle slightly in the cupboard and I would wake mom, so I sat there for a while trying to ignore it. You know how that goes. Pretty soon the ant bite was the size of a basketball and it was all I could think of, itch! itch! itch!, the way a mosquito in the night ends up the size of a 747 and the next morning the bedroom looks like a war zone because you’ve thrown everything you could find at the damn thing and now you have to buy a new lamp. Not that I ever did that.

I kept thinking there had to be something I could put on it to sooth the itching, something in that bathroom had to have alcohol in it, right? Dad’s old aftershave? Something? But, no. Mousse, Ajax, extra lightbulbs, I dug everything out of the cupboard – nothing. I started digging through my overnight bag, furiously rubbing my foot against my leg uselessly trying to stop the burning itch which was now half the size of Alaska.

And then, voilà:

It worked! Or, maybe it was just mental, but either way, the itching finally stopped, I fell asleep in the cool darkness of the Bat Cave and slept not like a baby until the sun came up.

We had another fun day and went shopping and eating and shopping and eating. I had a nice run in the hills – at 5,000 feet it takes a while to get acclimated to the thinner air so I had to do some stopping and starting but it was a beautiful day and I was so happy to be running my beautiful Arizona. You can’t feel too sad when you have a view like this:

And this:

Beautiful, huh?

That evening we watched Ground Hog Day and read all the little stories at the bottom of the screen which my AMC doesn’t have, not that I’m bitter or going to harp on that all month. Then I went to the Bat Cave to read my second book since I’d finished the first book I’d brought. This new book was one of those that Oprah’s kingdom has deemed worthy of her honor and they’d slapped a sticker on the front. But the sticker was a little loose in one spot, which was irritating because I could feel it with my fingers while I held the book. So I tried to pull it off but I think they use Gorilla Glue or something on those things so all it did was tear in half and then when I tried to read it was sticky. This was even more irritating. I tried scraping it off with my fingernail but that started to mess up the book cover, which was currently new and smooth. If you’re going to read a book it either needs to be new and smooth or totally worn out, not sort of new and sort of worn out. There had to be a way to get that sticky off the cover. If only I had something with a little alcohol … or … something…

I was abducted by Aliens!
I was sucked into a Black Hole!
I was transported to an alternate universe!
I fell deeply asleep for forty years!

Ok, maybe I just got busy and then went out-of-town. Sorry, I know both of you have completely stopped breathing while waiting for a wonderful, life changing post. You don’t look so good, not breathing and all that. Maybe you should get a life?

Anyway, taking up where we left off two weeks ago on the last tantalizing and mesmerizing post about how hard my poor life is, AT&T was firm in its resolve that I was not getting anything fixed for five days. Whether they have too much stuff that breaks or not enough people to fix the broken stuff, either way they were intractable.

I made up a song about the issue:It’s my blog and I’ll rant if I want to rant if I want to rant if I want to. You would rant too if it happened to you

Well, unless you were the Hubs who has the patience of Job, only not as many cows and wives. “Ok, I’m accepting, I’m accepting,” he said when I told him. Well, sure he was accepting. His work still had internet, right? What was to accept on his end? Working and getting things done? That’s tough.

I said something cranky. Imagine that.

To continue with the comparison of Job: this is why Hubs, with the patience of Job, if he were Job, would have lots of cows but would balk at more than one wife. One is one too many most of the time, I suspect. Also, you pronounce it JOBE. Even though it’s spelled JOB like “I have a job”, it’s pronounced JOBE, like I said. Like, “I have a JOBE.” Of course, if you tell people you have a JOBE they will think you have a dog or a friend or something named Job pronounced JOBE and will think you are a ne’er-do-well who doesn’t work. I think you should just shut up at that point, but that’s just my opinion. Go ahead and try it. Don’t come crying to me.

I felt irritated and cranky until it occurred to me that what we are dealing with, here, is a First World Problem. Put on the Big Girl pants. Which I did and then I went to BeckyB’s house and borrowed a cup of wireless for a couple of hours to be sure any work hot spots were stomped out. AT&T showed up the following Tuesday (which was about a year ago at this point, thankfully I have a good memory) – at my house – a live person – who immediately detected the location of the issue, found that in the box at the end of the street where my service arises out of the deep dark hole of underground life were two wires, a black one and an orange one. When these two wires are dangling, loose and unconnected, voilà! No Service! When they are connected, voilà! Service! And then he stayed until I got everything hooked back up and working. Nice guy. I have his name and number. Let me know if your internet quits. Black connects to black, orange to orange. Crazy sh*t, I know, it takes an expert.

So then, since I had nothing else to do that week before I had internet resurrected, my crazy friend and I worked out with Killer. Then I went to my anonymous crazy friend’s house, where BeckyB set Matilda up on the Cycleops and we did Suffer-O-Rama Spinnervals for 45 minutes (seriously? Suffer-O-Rama? How can this possibly be good??) and then quick like little bunnies we hopped off, put on our running shoes and did 1.7 around her neighborhood. My first Brick. With mixed emotions I have signed up for the Memphis in May Sprint Tri. When I told hubs he started to smile and then he froze as though Big Foot just showed up on our front lawn. Don’t move Don’t move Don’t move, you might scare it. Carefully moving nothing but his lips he said, “oh, good.” Pat Big Foot softly on the head. Nice Big Foot, there you go.

I thought about that a lot – the triathlon, not Big Foot – the next day as I swam back and forth back and forth like a hamster running on its little wheel going nowhere. I thought about how I have a few more weeks to learn to swim 400 yards without holding on the side of the pool every 25th yard. I thought about being in a lake and looking down as I swim, seeing nothing. I considered closing my eyes while I swam in the pool, to practice not seeing, but I didn’t really feel like bumping into the side of the pool in front of everyone. I wondered if maybe you see stuff but it’s kind of slimy and squishy, and some of it came out of a fish? Or do you see fish? I bet you don’t see fish. They’re probably too smart to swim where crazy people are. I hope so, anyway.

Finally I had internet and to spare. The next morning I sat on the patio, Jamaica Me Crazy in my steaming mug, foggy and zero visibility. I could see the trees, random black outlines twisting and curving against the grey fog, a cacophony of birds cheeping chirping tweeting and squawking and an awkward squirrel ran down the side of a tree, little shards of bark breaking loose and falling in front of him.

I was reminded of one of my favorites from Morning Prayer, the Canticle of Daniel:

Every shower and dew, bless the Lord.
All you winds, bless the Lord.
Fire and heat, bless the Lord.
Cold and chill, bless the Lord.
Dew and rain, bless the Lord.
Frost and chill, bless the Lord.
Ice and snow, bless the Lord.
Nights and days, bless the Lord.
Light and darkness, bless the Lord.
Lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord.

Let the earth bless the Lord.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
Mountains and hills, bless the Lord.
Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord.
You springs, bless the Lord.
Seas and rivers, bless the Lord.
You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord.
All you birds of the air, bless the Lord.
All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord.
You sons of men, bless the Lord.

Thankfully, although I forget to do this most of the time, the birds, squirrels and budding plants remembered. I need to watch them more often.

Well, here’s a surprise: it’s another grey, drizzly overcast day. I have the heater on and am wearing Uggs, jeans, a sweatshirt and a fleece jacket while I drink moremoremore coffee.

A couple Mondays ago dawned grey, stormy and depressing and I felt the same way. I’d spent part of the night with Murph T. Dog dug head first under the blankets, crammed between me and hubs, me teetering on the edge of the bed as the poor thing shivered beside me in terror at the thunderstorm, his butt uncomfortably close to my pillow as house vibrated with every nearby CRASH of thunder. I held him tightly, partly to calm him and partly to keep from sliding off the little sliver of bed left to me. Doze off BOOOOOM doze off BOOOOOM … repeat. I finally sort of oozed out of bed and foggily tried making some coffee. Note to self: put the K-cup IN the coffee maker if you prefer coffee over a mug of hot water.

The previous Friday hubs had directed the house painters to sever what he thought was a dead DirecTV cable coming into the house and, yep, soon as he sat to watch the news it was sadly discovered the wire had been, in fact, and as you’ve already guessed: Live. I’m gonna bet you also know which of us spent 45 minutes on a Friday evening calling customer service numbers only to be told to call a different customer service number only to be told to call a different customer service ad nauseam. I did finally connect with a charming young man named Andy who was originally from South Dakota and who sounded just like my family; within a minute I was pronouncing it South DahkoatAH and yep you bettin’ all over the place. It was old home week in a customer service phone center microcosm and I suddenly desired thick black coffee in a china cup and lemon pie with a meringue top sweating slightly where the sugar had been sprinkled, served on a mismatched china dessert plate.

At 7:37 am Monday, while I was still trying to figure out why my coffee tasted like hot water, the phone rang. What. The. Hell? DirecTV, scheduled for 8am-Noon, was on their way – and actually showed up at 7:59. I don’t know what kind of business they are running there, hiring nice young men to effectively handle your service call and then sending a nice service man out – on time – to fix your cable – without telling you that he needs something he doesn’t have on his truck and he’ll be back in an hour only to return next month. They cannot continue to do business like this, it is not the American Way of Truth And Justice and Liberty For All Amen Baby Jeezus In Your Little Wooden Crib Filled With Straw Where Is The Remote. (You don’t have a remote, Baby Jesus, remember? It wasn’t invented yet.)

Meanwhile I had a morning appointment scheduled with Dr. K because who actually thought DirecTV would really show up? So now their promptness and fine customer service have caused me a problem because I’m a cynic. I do believe it is my right to remain cynical and I do not appreciate them trying to disabuse me of my hard-earned cynicism. I was forced to read Letters to the Editor twice at lunch just to restore my lack of faith in humanity. I called and – of course – Dr. K’s fine office staff promptly answered the phone and graciously re-scheduled me for noon, which, for all I know, was Dr. K’s lunch time. It would be just like them to be really nice like that. And I bet they don’t read the idiot Letters to the Editor and yell at the newsprint, either.

So two Mondays ago I had a little extra trouble with the whole brain thing. As you both know, I have a little bit of a daily fight with depression. Whenever I finally see Little Baby Jesus in His Crib His Daddy Made Him we are going to have a talk about the issue. However, and until that time, I’m stuck with this damn brain, made of cells and electonicals and neutriniums and chemicals that all function on some scientific level, leaving me to expect it to be rational which, apparently, once filtered through the physical composition of a body, it can no longer be. Created to be rational, born into irrationality. Grey rainy cold days don’t help. More caffeine does. Social media helps. People post uplifting crap about being Zen and smelling the roses and putting your best foot forward helps. They post stupid pictures and videos that make you laugh, which helps. I can’t prove it, but I have also begun to suspect there are people out there who actually post stuff – on purpose – that will make me either LOL or say dammit. Dammit.

After a bunch more grey cloudy drizzly days that week, Monday dawned last week: grey, cloudy, drizzly and miserable. This time, however, I didn’t even have internet to lift my flagging spirits because, as opposed to the DirecTV people, AT&T was desperately trying to reach new lows in customer service and doing a damn fine job of it with little or no apparent effort whatsoever. Flushed with success after the TV issue, I decided to call AT&T about the irritating and increasingly loud hum in the phone which also disconnected internet for a couple of minutes every time I answered a call. Fortunately the only people calling are debt collectors and that guy from prison in the Philippines, but, still.

I knew it was a mistake, I’d known all along not to be expecting this to be a quick fix and sure enough the guy they sent out Thursday, the Invisible Man, who never actually showed up at my house, asked me any questions or checked back after invisibly not fixing the issue: didn’t fix the issue. What Mr. Invisible Serviceman did, actually, was leave us with no connection whatsoever, as I discovered Friday morning when my internet and phone were dead. Another 45 minutes of AT&T service call hell YES YOU SORRY @#&^%&!!! PIECE OF @#&^$$$!! THAT YOUR MOTHER CREATED IN A FRYING PAN, AS I’VE SAID 87 TIMES, THAT IS MY CORRECT PHONE NUMBER, do you have trust issues??? (I’d like to point out here that at this time I was yelling at the computer that answered the phone, not a real person from India.) (I would not yell like that at a live person. I might say to them, “I’m so incredibly frustrated, here, and I’m kinda mad, but I understand it is not your personal fault.”) (Then, when I hung up, then I would definitely yell at them. YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER AND YOUR FATHER SMELT OF ELDERBERRIES! I would yell, randomly shoving my fists in the air in a slugging motion.)

Picking up the first index card in the pile, the service person read carefully, “Yes, Mrs. Upset Person, your phone line does appear to be dead.” NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!!!! I screamed silently in my head, my eyeballs bulging.

“Yes, I understand I have no service. This is why I am calling you, my new favoritest person in the world.”

Looking through their alphabetically ordered index cards, the phone answering person found the Conciliatory Reply index card and replied, reading slowly, “I am sorry you are having this problem. We here at AT&T value you as a customer and think you are probably a fine upstanding person who does not yell at people inside their mind, and we want to help you because we value you, and we are here to help you. How may I help you?”

If I continue typing the rest of the conversation I will A) have carpel tunnel syndrome B) scare the poop out of Mo again and C) have to beg the doctor for a Zanax which I don’t really have time to wait for since their office is closed on Wednesday, plus driving to the pharmacy is difficult once your head has completely exploded.

It turns out that my valued, cherished, esteemed and highly regarded relationship with AT&T was of such importance that they eventually scheduled a service call – for the internet THEY broke – for Tuesday no later than 6pm. Five days hence.